A method is known from German Patent No. 41 00 108, for example. To manufacture a ceramic layer system, electrodes and leads composed of a platinum silk-screen paste or a cermet silk-screen paste having 60 percent platinum by volume and 40 percent zirconium oxide by volume are printed on an unsintered ceramic carrier foil (green foil) composed of zirconium oxide stabilized with yttrium oxide. Subsequently, a cover layer of zirconium oxide may be applied using the screen printing technique. It is furthermore known that the functional layers to be deposited on the ceramic carrier foil may be treated with an organic solvent, e.g., butylcarbitol or 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, in order to enhance the workability of the functional layers.
A disadvantage thereof is the fact that solvent from the printed functional layers penetrates the ceramic carrier. The solvent reacts with organic compounds contained in the ceramic carrier, for example, which causes the ceramic carrier to shrink or even disintegrate while the printed functional layers dry. If shrinkage occurs, the ceramic carrier may become warped. If the ceramic carrier is laminated together with further ceramic carriers on which functional layers may also be printed, the ceramic carriers become positioned incorrectly in relation to each other if the ceramic carriers have shrunken by different amounts.